By Scott: When we first moved down here we saw advertisements for the Atlantis submarine and as you drive along the water front in George Town it passes right in front of the storefront for the submarine operation so it isnt something that you see and then forget because you never drive by it again. But in the 2 plus years we have been here we haven't done the tour at first not wanting to spend the money to do the tour and later figuring we would do it some day just not that day. Well, today I had a chance to take the tour for free along with eight of our tourism apprenticeship training students who are doing a day time program with the college in partnership with the Department of Tourism. They are training to work in the tourism industry and this tour was set up to show them what they can talk to their customers about if they are asked about things to do on the Island. Our tour was set for 10:30 a.m. and we arrived at the dock at about 10:00 a.m. We had a chance to talk with the manager who described the history of the company and the different tours that they do.
To get to the submarine we rode a tender south out of the harbor about a mile down by the oil terminal by Sunset House. The tender pulls up next to the submarine off shore and we boarded the submarine. The submarine is assisted by a surface ship that follows it as it goes and gives it directional bearings since it doesn't have a GPS system. We went down to a depth of almost 100 feet and went out to the Cayman wall which dips almost 1500 feet. It was a pretty amazing sight looking over the wall and into the depths. We saw a number of very large fish you don't typically see on shore snorkels including a huge female hawksbill turtle, some Queen Angelfish and Blue Angelfish as well as hundreds of large black durgons and groupers. The entire trip dock to dock was about an hour and a half with almost an hour spent under the water. We did a morning trip which was amazing but were told that the evening trips are even more spectacular. Although it is a pricey trip, it is something worth the money and I definitely plan to take Katie for a trip the next time we do one of our vacation in Cayman weekends. Fortunately locals get a special rate so we just need to find a day when there aren't a bunch of cruise ships in town.
